Hillary Clinton is pushing for politicians to take greater action on gun control.
“Gun violence in our country is out of control. And it’s killing our kids,” she said. “It’s outrageous we let this happen, and that there are people who worship guns more than they worship life.”
From mass shootings to the perils of social media, the former secretary of state and her daughter, Chelsea, spoke about a range of issues at a keynote conversation on Saturday at the Toronto International Film Festival. The two touched down in Canada to promote their documentary series “Gutsy,” which premiered Sept. 9 on Apple TV+.
The hour-long conversation, moderated by Sophie Grégoire Trudeau (the wife of Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau), was therapeutic and open as the mother-daughter duo got candid about motherhood (“the hardest thing I ever did,” the elder Clinton admitted), bullying (“people would say hateful, really scary things to me,” the younger Clinton recalled), menopause and “the catastrophe of the 2016 election.”
At the start of the talk, Hillary paid tribute to Queen Elizabeth II, who died on Sept. 8. Clinton, who “had the pleasure and privilege of meeting her several times” remembered the late monarch as “someone who was engaging and curious. She wanted to know about you.”
“She rarely expressed her own opinions — that was not a part of the queenly duties — but was very quick to inquire about what you were thinking,” Hillary continued. “I found her to be an incredible model of service and leadership and duty.”
The Clintons also discussed what it means to be gutsy, a question at the center of their eight-part series that features women from all walks of life, including Gloria Steinem, Megan Thee Stallion, Kim Kardashian and Jane Goodall.
“The gutsiest personal thing I ever did was stay in my marriage,” the former first lady said, alluding to hardships that resulted from her husband Bill Clinton’s public affair. “That’s not the right choice for everybody.”
Another hot topic for the Clintons is the negative way that social media and screen time is affecting young people.
“I don’t want to live in VR. I do not want to live based on other people’s expectations of me,” Chelsea said. “I don’t want to live in reaction to other people’s opinions.”
Hillary, who is no stranger to online scrutiny, put it simply: “We are failing our kids. Tech companies are failing our kids. We should have a set of standards or beliefs about screen time.”
It’s important, she continued, because “we are what we consume. And we’re conducting a massive experiment on children with our technology. They are consuming technology in a way that has never happened in human history. We are seeing some results where we see an increase in anxiety, depression, bullying, misogyny, sexism and other things people wouldn’t say to your face, but feel perfectly free to say to or about you online.”
On a lighter note, the Clintons talked about simple pleasures to help detox from technology, like taking walks in nature and gardening.
“We did really well with our tomatoes,” Hillary said. “Last year was a disaster. This year was really good; we got cherry tomatoes and heritage tomatoes, lots of lettuce, lots of peppers, green peppers, hot peppers, chives, lots of herbs.”
